The Other Swordsman Spinoff
by Gary Thunder
Summary: It's a spinoff of The Other Swordsman. Not to be read first...read it when you hit chapter 60 or so. Seriously. It won't make ANY sense otherwise.


Um. Hi. Would you believe me if I told you my computer broke again? Seriously. I'm more pissed off than anything in the world, believe you me. However, I'm getting a new one on Thursday (no more wimping around and waiting for it to be fixed!), so there we go. Until then, I have provided you with...dum dum dum...a spinoff!

A spinoff. Yes, an alternate ending, if you will. Bear in mind that this does NOT follow the current story (e.g., Tobias isn't evil, and you'll figure out more as you read). So don't call me, weeping, about how this ends. This is just something borne of my depression at losing another computer. (sniff) I liked that computer.

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Death.

It is an eventuality.

Everything will die, _everything_. Wait long enough, and every living thing will succumb to either violence or disease or the slow decay of time.

Nobody can truly be called immortal, because agelessness is merely a delaying measure. Death will come, even to the forever young.

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Tobias looked all around him.

He saw death.

It was one of the largest villages in Japan – or at least what was left of it. Every house, every building was smashed or slashed to pieces. Bodies littered the ground. Blood coated every surface.

He walked through the death, slowly.

Step.

Step.

Step.

He turned his head slightly to one side and saw the Seer's house, destroyed as all of the others. Yumi lay broken, a wooden support beam protruding jaggedly from her chest like a spear. The Seer's head was on a tall pole, her body carelessly flung aside.

He walked away from the death, slowly.

Step.

Step.

Step.

He saw the inn where all his friends were staying for the night; utterly in ruins. He could barely identify the bodies, as mangled as they were; and the blood painted everything a grisly red.

He thought he saw Kagome's young form, half-buried under some rubble. On closer inspection, it turned out that she wasn't half buried, she was merely sliced in two. The lower half of her body was a few rooms down.

Inuyasha's body was easy to identify. A circle of destruction surrounded him. Bits and pieces of the General's cape and fragments of his armor littered the ground around him. He still clutched Tetsusaiga in his lifeless grasp, his arm severed from his body.

Miroku's corpse was lying, drunkenly splayed out. His body was speared on his own staff, the other end of it crammed into the ceiling. His limbs dangled like wet ropes. One of his sutras fell from his pocket and landed near Tobias's feet.

Sango was nearly broken in half. The shattered wreckage of her body was crudely draped over her giant boomerang. Some of the skin had been peeled from her body and had been used to cover the grips of the weapon.

He walked on, seemingly oblivious to all the death.

Step.

Step.

Step.

At the end of it all stood the General. His clothes were immaculate, his armor whole and polished. He was surveying his handiwork, apparently not noticing Tobias advancing on him.

His gaze flicked over the smashed inn. The sides of his mouth curled upwards, slightly, in what looked like the ghost of a smile. Then his eyes turned to Tobias.

His expression was unreadable. His eyes seemed as utterly expressionless as the General's always were. The General saw, and nodded slightly. He stood up, just a little straighter.

"Run along now, boy," said the General. His voice was a soft timbre that danced across the landscape. An echo answered briefly, but the noise died away as soon as it had begun.

The silence, thus disturbed, reasserted itself again. Not so much as the chirp of a bird or the call of some woodland animal disturbed the quiet. It seemed to settle over the area like a thick blanket, choking out all noise.

"Go," said the General, more sharply. He took a step forward. "This land is lost to you. Go, and make some new friends, elsewhere." He looked Tobias straight in the eye.

"I'll be waiting," he whispered.

"No," said Tobias quietly.

"No?" the General said slowly. Tobias slowly nodded.

"You wish to fight me?"

"I do."

"You know that you will lose."

"I know."

"Then why do you try?"

"Because I have nothing left."

They drew simultaneously. Tobias ran towards him, his sword flashing in the sunlight.

A single slash.

Tobias fell.

His head rolled from his shoulders.

The General sheathed his sword, and walked away into the setting sun.

Step.

Step.

Step.

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I don't know why I wrote this, but y'know. I can't deny my creative urges. Review. The new chap will come up when my files are once again accessible.


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